Then one day, Jocelyn grabbed Rick in the hall outside his father’s room and said, “He understands. I know he does.”
She pulled him into the room and demonstrated by putting some objects on the table in front of Len. A key ring, her watch, her glasses. “Leonard, would you please look at the watch?” she said.
Len moved his eyes to the right and stared, unmistakably, at her pink Fossil.
There was, Rick thought sadly, someone inside there.
But apart from that one parlor trick, Len seemed to make no progress, and a month later he was moved to the nursing home to sit in a wheelchair all day in front of the TV. Rick still had no idea how much his father understood when you talked to him.
He was unshaven this morning, or maybe just poorly shaven, clumps of gray beard scattered here and there like tumbleweed on his chin and his sunken cheeks. His fingernails were long and ridged and yellow, badly in need of clipping.
“Hey, Dad, I’m having some work done to the house.”
Len turned and looked in his direction. His expression was hostile, disdainful, the way he constantly looked these days.
Talking to his father felt like talking to himself, except that Rick kept some topics-Holly and all that, the flaming wreck of his career-carefully off-limits.
“You remember Jeff Hollenbeck next door? He’s a contractor now, and he’s going to give me a good price.”
Len stared, blinked a few times.
“Remember I said we’re going to sell the old place, now that no one’s living there anymore?” He sidestepped the fact that he was sleeping on Len’s couch. That was too depressing to talk about; Len didn’t need to know.
“So I wanted to ask you something.” He watched Len’s eyes. “I found something inside… inside the house.” He waited a beat, glanced back at the door, then back at his father. “Inside the walls. Next to your study.”
“I thought it was Rick!” a loud female voice exclaimed. Rick turned, saw the aide he liked the most out of all of them, a heavyset blonde named Brenda, swoop into the room. She was probably fifty and wore her thick glossy hair in a pageboy. She wore baby-blue scrubs and had rhinestone-speckled harlequin glasses, which seemed to be an artsy affectation. The rhinestones glittered in the light from the ceiling. She smiled her big gummy smile. “Wait, it’s not Sunday, is it?”
“Nah, decided to shake things up a bit.”
“Phew, I guess I’m not losing it after all.”
“My dad treating you okay?”
“Your dad’s a sweetie,” she said. “We all love Leonard.” They both knew that Brenda had no idea what Len was like, whether he was a sweetie or an ogre. The man didn’t talk, didn’t even react. But Rick appreciated her saying it just the same.
She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost time for Judge Judy, and I know he doesn’t like to miss that.”
“Dad and I are going to talk just a little more.” His father had never watched Judge Judy or any other court show, back when he was able to voice his opinion; he doubted Len liked it now. And if he did, he had no way of letting anybody know.
“Leonard, what about your lunch, honey?” she said. “Not hungry today?”
“I don’t think he’s a big meat loaf fan.”
As Brenda began to leave, Rick asked, “Do you have a pair of nail clippers?”
“Of course.” She swiveled to one side and plucked a pair of clippers out of a dresser drawer, handing them to Rick with a flourish.
“Let’s see your hands, Dad.” He took hold of Len’s left hand and began to clip his father’s thick, grooved nails, and Brenda drifted out of the room.
Rick clipped slowly. His father held out each hand, one at a time. It felt oddly intimate. It was like taking care of a small child. He thought about how everything sooner or later comes back around. He realized with a jolt that his eyes had teared up.
He stopped clipping. “Jeff and I were doing some exploratory demolition,” he said quietly, “and we opened up the wall next to your study, at the back of the closet.” Len’s mouth was frozen in that haughty expression, but his watery eyes seemed anxious. They followed Rick’s. “There was money back there. A huge amount of money. Millions of dollars. How did it get there, any idea?” Rick swallowed, waited. “Is it yours?”
Len’s restless eyes came to a stop, looked directly into Rick’s.
“Is it?”
The old man’s eyes bore into his. Then he began to blink rapidly, three or four times. Nervously, maybe.
“Are you signaling me, Dad?” His father was able, at times, to blink: once for yes, twice for no. But not always, and not consistently. Did he sometimes lose the ability; did it wax and wane? Or did he grow weary of trying? Rick had no idea.
The blinks stopped, then resumed after a few seconds.
“How about you blink once for yes and twice for no. This cash I found-is it yours? Once for yes, twice for no.”
Len looked straight, unblinking, into Rick’s eyes, held his gaze for a few seconds.
Then blinked twice.
“No,” Rick said. “It’s not yours, correct?”
Nothing. Then one blink.
Yes.
“Okay, we’re getting somewhere.” Rick’s heart rate began to accelerate. “Do you-do you know whose cash it is?”
Nothing. Five, ten seconds went by, and Len didn’t blink. He looked away, then blinked a few times, but it didn’t seem to mean anything.
“Dad, who does it belong to?” Rick asked, before remembering he couldn’t ask a question that didn’t have a yes or no answer. “Let me try again: Do you know whose cash it is?”
Now Len blinked rapidly, not just once or twice. Many times, too many to count.
It was hard to tell, but he looked frightened.
5
He had a hundred thousand dollars in cash burning holes in his down parka and no room on his credit cards. His Citicard MasterCard, his Bank of America Visa, his Capital One MasterCard-all maxed out, all as worthless as Confederate dollars.
He was carrying around an insane amount of cash, with many times that sitting in a storage locker, in a world where fewer and fewer people took cash anymore. Who used cash in any serious quantity? Drug kingpins and Mafiosi. Criminals. The infamous Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, hiding out in Santa Monica, paid his rent in cash, Rick had read somewhere. Sure, you tip bellhops and parking valets with real money. But buy an airplane ticket with cash and you’ll have Homeland Security crawling up your ass.
He drove to Harvard Square and circled around for ten minutes, looking for a parking spot, before he realized he could now afford to park in that damned overpriced parking lot on Church Street. At the Bank of America branch next to the Harvard Coop, he deposited nine thousand dollars into his checking account. Then he opened an account at Cambridge Trust bank, across the street, and deposited nine thousand five hundred dollars into it. As long as he kept deposits under ten thousand bucks, he’d be fine. He saw a sign for Citizens Bank on JFK Street and stopped in there.
Now he had 28,500 dollars in three separate bank accounts, with temporary checkbooks to go with them. It seemed like a small fortune.
By the late afternoon he was back at the house. The side door off the driveway, which opened into the kitchen, was unlocked. Strange. He didn’t remember leaving it unlocked. He wondered if Jeff had.